California Prisons: Decades In Solitary
I’m pretty tough on crime but this seems to be a bit extreme to me.
In most prisons the concept of solitary confinement (aka the hole) is common for dealing with real troublesome inmates. While in solitary you are usually kept isolated and alone for about 23 hours a day with an hour for shower and outside contact.
Conditions vary but often in solitary you have no TV or radio, and your reading material is limited to a religious text or a dictionary. Needless to say my comments are directed at situations where people are in the strict isolation solitary, not where you have TV and plenty of reading material.
I’ve got no problem with that, if you are causing problems and need to be dealt with then solitary is sometimes needed.
But in most states they put you in for a few days or weeks. In some extreme cased for a few months.
But as the linked article indicates, in California they are putting people in solitary for *decades*.
In most cases these prisoners are gang members and while sometimes the intent is to prevent gang violence it is also used to ‘persuade’ prisoners to talk about gang activities.
I do understand that we need to be tough on prisoners and I’m not by any means soft on crime. But this seems to be a step too far.
7 Responses to “California Prisons: Decades In Solitary”
Part of the problem, as I see it, is that prisons need to have some option to get these people to give up their information.
Since the decline of the power of prisons to do things to coerce prisoners to talk (not torture, but things like hard labor), this has become the lone real way to obtain information from these prisoners, and, unless things change, I expect that these options too will go away as the Supreme Court creates yet more rights out of whole cloth, from the Eighth Amendment.
I am pretty sure that preventing gang violence is the prominent reason. The California prison system is a training\proving ground for gang members.
If a guy knifes someone every time he gets out of solitary…. maybe he should stay there?
“Part of the problem, as I see it, is that prisons need to have some option to get these people to give up their information. ”
I think maybe you have a very different idea of what the corrections system is supposed to do than those who run it. People are convicted of crimes and get sent to jail. There are some who think that time should be spent with the purpose of rehabilitation, and some who think it is primarily for punishment. Either way, getting prisoners to “talk” isn’t really within the scope of what’s going on there.
ShannonLee, though, is right. If the prisoner poses and extreme safety hazard to other prisoners or to prison staff, that should, indeed, be taken into consideration.
In California there must be evidence of gang activity for someone to be place in the “shoe”. They must have 3 pieces of verifed evidence to place inmates in Shu for gang activity. Being in a gang itself is an illegal activity. Renouncing the gang can in and of itself get you out of the Shu but of course you must then be segregated from the general population for safety. Texas is on of several states that have similar rules. Anyone found to be a member of a Security Threat Group (12 specific gangs in TDC) is automatically placed in administrative segregation which is Texas version on the Shu. It is worth noting that while contact is limited and you are in your cell for extended periods of time neither Texas adseg or Californians Shu are solitary confinement and don’t come close to conditions historicaly referred to as “the hole”
Being in solitary confinment is also a defense against attack. It is a safe place in a hellish world of constant threat. If I were in prison, I would prefer it.
In my professional capacity I have been in many state and federal segregation units. A couple of things should be remembered.
First, these units are very expensive and an inefficient way of housing prisoners…one to a cell with an increased staff to prisoner ratio in the unit.
Space (number of available cells) in segration is very limited and is usually reserved for the worst of the worst, those prone to violence to other prisoners or staff and often the violently mentally ill.
I’ve never seen it used as a way get someone to talk. And certainly keeping someone in segregation for “decades” won’t do the trick, and the information would be useless by the time it came out even if it did work.
As EEllis points out, segration today is different from the “hole” of old. Most segregation units today are almost hospital sanitary, but still very severe.
With prisoners who present an ongoing threat to others, prisons do not have the option of allowing such persons in the general population.
We need segregated prisons. Non-violent offenders should never be put in with the gangs or other violent criminals. I think it would help a lot in reducing recidivism and letting the non-violent offenders re-establish themselves on the outside. Of course I also consider the War on Drugs to be the most costly policy failure of the last century or so. It’s worse than Prohibition, given how long it has gone on and how harsh the penalties are for non-violent offenses.